#1 pokemonisfun vs #16 KM
let's get a few things straight despite both of these users being anything but that - I absolutely adore KM and his mind for the game, particularly in the building department, is beyond unique. nobody who plays atm is nearly as willing to dumpster dive and make genuinely functional teams with it. for that reason, I think KM has a solid shot at taking this on the back of some really cool techs that might be able to knock pif out of his comfort zone. that said, pif is obviously one of the most experienced uuers ever, if not the single most. tough break to catch r1. considering how much he dominated this tour last year and how good of a player pif is overall, I think he'll take this pretty handily; KM's crackhead stuff will absolutely cruise its way to victory against a less experience player, but you won't pull the wool over pif's eyes quite as easily. def my favourite series of r1.
#2 Kink vs #15 QWILY
you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but kink proves time and time again that you don't need to learn new ones if the old ones still work just fine. every single time I see him bring teams that I think are senseless he just seems to win with them consistently, evidenced by his oodles of UU results over time in addition to a great recent UU Open run. qwily had a pretty solid UUFPL run if memory serves, I remember him playing p well against rinn in a high pressure game, and having played against him a couple times I know he's no pushover. I think kink's experience will be the deciding factor here but with some good support and a little aggression qwily's def got a shot.
#3 Accel vs #14 dunoks
dunoks has actually been very quietly putting up some good results for a little while, having had a decent open run and now qualifying here in a messy situation. in that sense, he's quite scary to face; he's obviously competent, but there's very little data on him, so accel will have his work cut out for him in preparation. that said, accel is just very very good at uu - no matter how disconnected he seems to get from the meta as a result of taking breaks every 15 minutes, he always comes back with a vengeance and just seems to farm and farm. i want to bold against him because of the post above me but I can't do it in good conscience.
#4 ProDigeZz vs #13 TMM
I think TMM's been doing pretty well lately and he obviously fielded a highly dominant UUFPL team that also served as the obligatory team tour drama hub so that was pretty cool. I think this is probably the closest of every series here. prodigezz hasn't really made much of a name for himself at all in uu, but he's been somewhat of a circuit shredder for a while now, doing very well in lc especially I believe? tho I'm not fact checking so apologies if I'm wrong. I liked what I saw in the few games of his I've watched, so I'll tentatively go with that because I'm not entirely sure where TMM's at playing-wise, but this could absolutely go either way.
#5 Adaam vs #12 rinnegan418
juan put this better than I could've. if you've ever read any of my predictions before then you probably know that I've never bolded against Adaam in my life and until he starts losing a bunch I don't think I'll be changing that. he's just always seemingly a step ahead with the meta at large and is obviously one of the strongest players the tier has to offer on top of that and has historically been one of the people to beat. rinn has always seemed good to me when he's trying his hardest and remaining level headed but he does seem to be quite tilt prone; i'm not sure if that's just the ladder getting to him which obv happens to the best of us or if it's just a thing that happens. if he can keep his cool then he can definitely make this series close and match etch it out but for now i'm gonna give it to jar jar binks.
#6 Lilburr vs #11 Maki
saturday @ 10pm +1
#7 JustFranco vs #10 Shiba
god this feels wrong but franco is a threat. shiba is the better player here and is infinitely more proven but something in my gut says franco will bring some crack that just throws shiba so far off the rails that he'll wanna retire again. if I were a little more sane and/or lucid then I'd absolutely give this one to shiba but I just can't for some reason. however if shiba opts to bring togekiss he will win and he brought togekiss during the laddering phase so this might be a rough start for the panda man
#8 TheFlawlessWin vs #9 juan123juan
words cannot describe how immensely powerful and dangerous this matchup actually is. like, seriously, these two are something else and I don't even know where to begin. tfw always smashes me on ladder whenever we play and juan didn't ladder cycle 1 so I have no idea how he's doing in UU but he obv qualified and mons is mons after all. i will go with tfw just because i've actually seen him player but i would not be at all surprised to see this go the other way; please just play on smogtours and let us watch because holy shit this is going to be a banger
just realised i only bolded the people on the left. promise that wasn't intended. gl to all